THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

thoughts. “So you’re saying SEOH has changed his tactics and there’s no consequence?”
    “He may not want to believe in our powers, but he has to know that MystiK power was behind the failure of ANASKO’S HERMES shuttle and the death of his son at the same moment your brother died.” Mathias dropped his gaze to the ground. “My father and our House led the drive to stop that launch. As the Governing House, we should have been better prepared for the reaction. We anticipated a backlash, but no one expected SEOH to send an assassin after three of our future leaders or to orchestrate a plan for genocide.”  
    There was little Callan could say to that admission, but Mathias did not deserve to carry the blame for those deaths. The only person responsible was SEOH. Callan walked over to lift the other spear and turned back. “Through resting?” 
    Once Mathias raised his weapon, Callan attacked. Strike, dodge, strike. Callan admitted, “Our elders must accept the need for change. Had all seven Houses worked together, my warriors would have been brought in to perform a covert attack on ANASKO’s shuttle launch that no one could have pinned on the MystiKs. That being said, regardless of any mistakes, at least your father took an action when we had to do something. We can’t allow SEOH to bring another deadly version of the K-Virus into our world again.”
    Mathias’s father had led the charge against space exploration for years. Callan respected that. MystiKs believed the dangerous K-Virus that annihilated so much of the world’s population five generations ago had originated in outer space. In his thinking, every effort SEOH took to expand space exploration placed the entire world’s population at risk.
    “The threat of the K-Virus won’t stop SEOH from trying to ship us off planet,” Mathias said, and shot forward, jabbing the spear.
    Callan spun away from the sharp tip. He landed with his feet set to intercept a second attack, but Mathias was laughing too hard to follow through. Callan gave him his due and dipped his head slightly in a nod, the equivalent of high praise for getting that close to an elite warrior. “You’re improving.”
    Shrugging, Mathias swung the spear up in front of his chest, holding it horizontally with two hands. Callan lifted his spear with two hands as if he wielded a sword, striking the wooden bar from different angles as Mathias blocked. Callan thought out loud. “With the threat of facing another K-Virus, does SEOH really think our Houses will go along with shipping MystiKs to a new planet?”
    “Perhaps. There are MystiKs who believe in SEOH’s relocation program as a chance for our people to rule their own world. I heard many excited about SEOH’s announcement of his new HERMES shuttle plans. The ad campaign went viral within minutes. If I saw one more ad for Hermes, God of Travel, I threatened to destroy my Cyberprocessor.”   
    “Foolish MystiKs and TeKs. Yet again, they hear only what they want to hear.”
    Mathias quipped, “I wonder if any of them realize Hermes was also the god of trickery and thieving.” 
    Callan answered with a wry smile. Could Mathias be right about SEOH’s reasoning behind using the Sphere as a cage for MystiK children?
    After the K’ryan Syndrome wiped out billions of people, every generation of MystiKs since then had become more powerful in using their abilities. Gifts the MystiKs considered as natural as breathing, but TecKnati saw as supernatural freakishness. Now the G’ortians showed signs of unexpected levels of abilities that, if combined, threatened a power capable of impeding technological advancement the MystiKs deemed reckless.
    Now that Callan thought on the specifics of the treaty–just as Mathias had intended during this training session–he realized Mathias hadn’t answered his earlier question. “Why do you think no TeK children are dying at home?” 
    Swinging the spear tip up and down in fast arcs, Mathias blocked, breathing hard as he answered. “The treaty is written in such a way that if an underaged MystiK dies by the hand of, or order of, a TeK as a premeditated act, a TeK child of equal rank will lose his or her life immediately. The idea was that no parent would willingly sacrifice his own child, and if someone who was not a parent killed a child, that the penalty would be great enough to force the people to rise up against the person responsible.”
    “But, as I mentioned, the loophole in